


Cumbersome and Heavy Body

by paperxcrowns



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Angst, Bad Parent Willis Todd, Body Dysphoria, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I was in a mood when I wrote this, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd-centric, Lazarus Pit (DCU), Lazarus Pit Madness, No editing we die like jason todd, Non-Consensual Body Modification, fuck that dude he can choke, i'm projecting on the boy!, it is very fitting for the general tone of this, not much comfort, the title is from body by mother mother, very appropriate tag for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperxcrowns/pseuds/paperxcrowns
Summary: It turns out that dying and coming back can mess with your mind and your body.(or: Jason doesn't feel comfortable in his own skin)title fromBody by Mother Mother
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 3
Kudos: 126





	Cumbersome and Heavy Body

**Author's Note:**

> when you can’t afford therapy, you project onto fictional characters

Jason hated mirrors.

Before his death, before he’d been adopted by Bruce, back when he’d still been living with Willis and Catherine, there had been one mirror in the house. It was a tiny circular mirror hooked just above the bathroom sink and had a large crack near the top.

Jason hated the bathroom. He avoided it every time he could. It was where his mom would lock herself for days sometimes, promising to get sober, to lock herself in to purge out the drugs. It never stuck long.

It was where they would hide from Willis when he came home drunk. Where Jason would sit on the toilet and Catherine would patch up his bruises and cuts with antiseptic. Or water when they’d run out of antiseptic and didn’t have the money to buy more.

He would often cast a glance at the mirror and stare at himself. At his unbrushed hair, his sunken cheeks, and the deep bruises under his eyes. He would stare long and hard at the ugly black and purplish-blue that stained his tan skin.

Willis Todd gave him scars, just like he gave Catherine scars. But she gave herself scars, all up both elbows, tiny pinpricks he used to compare to stars.

Jason knew where his scars were, and the stories behind each of them. They were familiar. They were painful reminders of who he was. Of who his father was. 

The biggest and ugliest scar slashed white and thick across his left arm where Will had stabbed him with a broken beer bottle when Jason had bought him the wrong brand of cigarettes.

The smallest scars were an ever-growing collection of tiny circular scars up his arms where Willis would press the butt of his cigarettes. 

After he became Robin, he still had scars. He got new scars. But he still knew each one of them. But these were different scars. These weren’t shameful things he hid with long sleeves or a jacket. They were battle scars. For every scar Willis gave him, he had one from a battle _he’d_ won, from a battle that proved he was _stronger,_ that he couldn’t be hurt anymore.

When he was Robin, he was invincible. No one could hurt him, and every time, he could fight back. No one could put him down or belittle him. He was free. Free as a bird, flying across the rooftops of Gotham, light as air and silent as a shadow. Robin was _magic._

* * *

When Jason surged out of the acid green waters of the Lazarus Pit, he first registered the itchiness, the strangeness.

He struggled to the edge of the Pit, fingers he didn’t recognize gripping the cold stone edge and pulling himself up. He stumbled back into the Pit, surprised at how _heavy_ and unbalanced his body was.

He finally pushed himself out of the water, the robes he’d been swathed in sopping wet and weighing him down. He felt dizzy and so out of place. There was something inherently _wrong_ with his body. He wanted to scratch at his body to rid himself of that horrible feeling.

He felt anger, and desperation, and _fear._ A terror that made him want to scream until he woke up at the Manor and realized none of it was real. Laughter echoed off the walls, sounding much too familiar, too shrill, too--

_“Which hurts more? A? Or B?”_

Jason shuddered and felt he was going to throw up.

“Jason Todd,” someone said.

He looked up to see a woman staring at him, her green eyes, green like the Pit waters, never wavered from his face. She looked familiar, but his mind was too muddled, too foggy, not quite there.

He opened his mouth, his tongue felt heavy, like his body. His teeth didn’t quite fit right, which was weird. His body was too big and too heavy, but his mouth felt the same. Just…..new.

* * *

There was anger. There was so much anger. And the slight buzz of discomfort thrumming under his skin only made him angrier. There was anger and rage and Jason tried to control it, tried to keep it from clouding his mind. He never thought he’d ever understood what “blinded with rage” actually felt like. It turned out it was more than just an embellished expression. There were days he’d feel a surge of rage overtake him completely, like a wave crashing over him, burning away all rational thoughts beyond _destroy_ and _hurt_. 

He didn’t want this to become him.

He could still be Jason Todd.

And then there were the days he would feel nothing.

Rage was better than that void that would suck him in and refuse to let him go.

He would just stare at himself, let the mirror warp his shape until he hated everything that was staring back at him. He would stare at the ugly new scars added to all the old ones.

There were new ones he’d gotten in death. He’d had an autopsy.

That was was evident from the ugly Y-shaped scar that traced a white line from both his collarbones, joining at his chest and trailing down all the way to his pelvis. 

On those days, he didn’t feel like Jason Todd. It was just a name that loosely belonged to him and definitely did not belong to the person staring back at him. 

He was too large, too broad, too different. He didn’t recognize himself. His body didn’t even recognize itself.

He almost wished for the blinding rage back on those numb days. At least it wouldn’t mean being unable to look away from the full-length gilded mirror that hung in his lavish bathroom, picking at everything that was wrong with him, that didn’t fit, that he wished would just disappear, go away. 

It was only a few weeks into his stay with the League of Assassins before he asked Talia to get someone to remove the mirror.

* * *

On most days, his body just felt foreign to him.

After the Lazarus Pit, his conscience was a stranger in his body. Or maybe his body was a stranger to his conscience. Maybe it worked both ways.

He never managed to find himself comfortable in his new body. It was too large, too tall. He would rake his nails up and down his arms and watch red marks blossom in their wake just to remind himself that this wasn’t a nightmare. He was in a body that wasn’t his and there was no escape. 

On good days, it just buzzed in the back of his mind.

On bad days, he would avoid any mirror at all cost, and feel himself start to lose his mind in a body that he did not know. He did not know how to get reaccustomed to his body. There was something missing and Jason didn’t know if it was the years and the potential growth-spurts he’d missed, or the body modifications the Lazarus Pit gave him.

On really bad days, he couldn’t do anything except stand in front of his mirror, staring at his body and at how _wrong_ it looked. 

He had never felt like that before. 

Maybe because he’d lived with his body his whole life. He’d gotten used to that one pretty early on. Now it was the same process-- figuring out how his body worked-- but as a seventeen-year-old with rage bubbling under the surface, with the acrid taste of desperation in his mouth. 

He wasn’t himself. He hadn’t been since he’d woken up, six feet under the ground, and he’d gotten used to the fact that he probably never would.

* * *

In the brief moments of lucidity after waking up in his coffin and clawing his way out and stumbling blindly right into the waiting hand of the League of Assassins, Jason dreamt of Bruce. He’d dreamt of his adopted father finding him, holding him close, his warm hands carding through his hair. There had been a time he did not know that Bruce had let the Joker live. There had been a time he did not know it had taken six months for Bruce to get over his death and hire a new Robin. 

Today, Jason was simply irritated.

His skin was warm and uncomfortable, pulled too tight in places and too loose in places, soft like wax and hard like cardboard. It was irritating him. He was not in the mood to be friendly to Bruce. 

The man’s face crumbled. At least, the parts Jason could see. His lips pulled downwards in a pained grimace.

“Jason?” he’d asked hoarsely.

The helmet had come off earlier. It was growing too hot and unbearable anyway, so Jason didn’t really mourn the loss. 

Jason scowled. He wasn’t in the mood to be friendly tonight, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk. He clicked the safety off his gun and shot Bruce in the leg-- he knew where the arteries were, Bruce would live, it hadn’t even nicked one. 

Jason jumped off the roof, ignoring Bruce’s calls as he swung away and way, further into Gotham.

* * *

Jason wasn’t on bad terms with Bruce, but he wasn’t on good terms with him either. He wasn’t going out on patrol tonight. He wasn’t in the mood.

“Jay?” Roy asked, poking his head through the door. “What’s wrong?”

Jason was sitting on the bed. In the very middle of the bed. It was at such an angle that he could see himself in the mirror hanging over their dresser if he leaned just a bit to the left.

He occasionally would, just to see himself. His square jaw, tan skin, the shock of stark white hair against black, the once blue eyes now a poisonous green that Roy swore glowed in the dark. 

“I need something greasy and unhealthy for dinner,” he said, finally tearing his eyes from a spot on the off-white wall he’d been staring at to look at his boyfriend. “Preferably something not approved by the FDA.”

Roy snorted. “How does pizza from that one place near that old theater sound?”

Jason’s wandering eyes snapped to attention. “The one that sells that honey chicken on the side?”

Roy sat on the bed, his phone already out. “That very one.”

He didn’t dial. Instead, he stared at Jason, his eyes roaming over his face, taking in everything, his eyes lingering like they were trying to memorize his features. Jason was still getting used to that.

“You won’t believe me, Jay, but you look _unreal_ ,” Roy breathed. "There isn't a part of you I don't love unconditionally."

Jason opened his mouth to speak, but Roy interrupted.

“It’s okay if you don’t believe me,” he said, this time his eyes staring into Jason’s. “You don’t have to.”

Jason started at the feel of Roy’s hand brushing over his and quickly glanced down. He didn’t look back up, not even when Roy linked their fingers together and tugged Jason closer.

“Pizza?” Jason asked in a muted voice because he didn’t trust his voice not to crack. Because he didn’t have anything else to say. He had too much to say and the words wouldn’t come.

Roy huffed a laugh. “I’ll take care of it. Though we’re not eating in the bedroom, so you’ll have to leave eventually.” He stood up, the bed dipping with his missing weight. Jason was still staring at the same spot on the mattress, mind swirling. “I love you, Jay,” Roy said, and then he was gone.

Jason looked up. The bedroom door was ajar and he could faintly hear Roy talking. It took effort, but he managed to get up without glancing at his reflection in the tiny mirror in their bedroom. 

He’d bought it at a Goodwill, mostly on a whim. He hadn’t gone there to buy a mirror, but he’d come home with it and had hung it there. He hated looking at his reflection, at his body, but he couldn’t bring himself not to. He couldn’t stop counting in his head everything that was wrong with what he was seeing. 

It had gotten easier, this past year and a half. His body wasn’t as strange as it had first been, and the itching underneath his skin was gone, but it wasn’t easier, yet. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be easier. 

He gripped the doorknob, yanking the door shut behind him. One day he’d have enough courage to throw that mirror away. Maybe one day he’d be able to actually look at a mirror without cringing away. For now, maybe he’d move it to the bathroom. 

He had proof he could get better, Roy told him all the time. If he could fight his addiction, then so could Jason.

Jason found it ridiculous to call it an addiction. 

Though Roy was right when he’d called it an obsession.

Roy glanced up and smiled at him from the couch and Jason smiled back. Maybe not fully genuine, but that didn’t matter. He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. Pizza and movies, screw Batman wanting to patrol with him. He could do it on his own. He had other children he could bother tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> [here is my tumblr](https://blas-ph-emy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
